Sunday watch.

Gabbing For Greenbacks

Robert Novak Latest Journalist To Muddy Waters Of Objectivity

WASHINGTON — Last week brought further proof of the glories of capitalism and flexibility of Washington journalists: Robert Novak, a chief polemicist for free markets, took money from regulators.

Novak is, of course, the syndicated newspaper columnist who's gained late-career prominence, and surely a heady tax bracket, on the lofty stage of television. He's mastered a role: the rumpled and raspy conservative ideologue, warning of a liberal apocalypse and able to reduce any domestic or foreign matter to two, at most three, aggressively barked sentences.

Like a growing number of Washington journalists, he schedules reporting around TV performances, in Novak's case on shows including CNN's "Evans & Novak," "Capital Gang" and "Crossfire" and NBC's "Meet the Press."

Getting on TV here can be like simultaneously spying the back door of a Brink's truck swinging open and its driver absentmindedly ambling down the block for lunch. Opportunity knocks. How much are you willing to grab?

For a video pundit, the door of fortune opens onto a world of paid exhibitions nationwide. On virtually any day, there's some group, somewhere, having a convention or daylong seminar where a pundit may be just what's needed to lure a few more bodies into the seats for an hour of "insider" media tales.

Last Tuesday, a Washington hotel hosted a typically arcane member of Groupdom, the North American Securities Administrators Association. It is, said a brochure, "the national voice of the 50 state securities agencies responsible for investor protection and the efficient functioning of the capital markets at the grass-roots level. NASAA plays a unique public policy role on the Washington scene as a strong and constructive advocate for small investor rights and related concerns."

But one can only spend so much time immersed in the adequacy of disclosure in documents provided small investors, stricter oversight of financial planners, limited partnership roll-up reform and, a hot current topic, suggestions that the "three strikes and you're out" attack on violent crooks be extended to rule-bending white-collar brokers. One must also eat.

Thus, their luncheon brought entertainment in the form of Novak and Michael Kinsley, his "liberal" foil, promising to reprise the well-practiced sparring known to fans of "Crossfire."

Babe Ruth and Satchel Paige, who picked up a few extra dollars plying their trade in the off-season, would be envious of journalism's modern-day counterpart to their barnstorming across hill and dale.

How envious? Well, let's first check the performance before revealing the tab.

Nancy Smith, a New Mexico state regulator, informed the assemblage of 200 that, after a morning of debating "three strikes and you're out," the association intended to "keep the fireworks going at lunch."

CNN had "allowed us to use the `Crossfire' format, which they say has never been used outside CNN," a wide-eyed Smith declared. The eyebrows of Novak appeared to rise, and an amused grin flashed, at this point, as if perhaps this was not quite the historic precedent that the eager New Mexican believed.

First up was Kinsley, a very bright fellow with one foot in the high-minded, if poorly compensated, world of cerebral magazines-he's a columnist at and former wunderkind editor-in-chief at both the New Republic and Harper's-and one foot in the high-profile marshland of TV.

Referring to Michigan congressman John Dingell, a proponent of extending the three-strikes sanction to brokers, Kinsley said that the words John Dingell "are likely to make Bob Novak froth at the mouth. But so are the words, `Good morning, Bob.' "

This first stab at humor elicited guffaws. It thus hinted at how a barnstorming pundit's challenge is somewhat less onerous than that of any member of the old Negro League who faced a coyly delivered Paige drop pitch.

But in a 10-minute opening monologue, the subtlety of Harvard-educated Kinsley's mind was given a decent vehicle. He provided legitimate analysis of several topics, including the frailties of Reagan and Bush administration economics, especially their failure to cut spending, and of Clinton's relatively superior discipline in assembling an honest budget.

When finished, he introduced "the man who believes Michael Milken is the greatest man of the 20th Century. I give you my friend, Bob Novak."

The Joliet native started with jibes apparently acquired from the Rotary Club Correspondence School of Comedy. Such as: "Michael Kinsley is like an anchovie. He's an acquired taste" (guffaw, guffaw). And this: "It's not the President who's screwing up. It's her husband."